


The Passenger's Prologue and Tale

by MrProphet



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 23:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10707462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Passenger's Prologue and Tale

I felt a strange sense of melancholy creping over me as the train pulled out of Lungern and moved slowly through the mountains of the Brünig Pass. I had known that this would not be an easy trip to make, although as usual my travelling companion and comrade of many years, Mr Sherlock Holmes, sat with the easy calm of a man on his way to the office for a day of business like any other.

“Doesn’t it bother you, Holmes?” I asked. “This landscape? These mountains? This…”

“My dear Watson,” Holmes replied, “why on Earth should I find a landscape disturbing? These mountains have never done me any harm, indeed the Reichenbach Falls did me and the world at large the inestimable favour of ridding us once and for all of the most dangerous criminal mastermind in history. The underworld has yet to produce a man to match him.”

“Will it ever?”

“I think perhaps not,” Holmes admitted. “Actually, my fear at present is that his place may be taken by a woman?”

I laughed at that. “I thought that women were illogical creatures, without method or rationality.”

“Well, aside from the exceptional cases this is true, and precisely what makes them so dangerous. How can an analytical mind decipher the workings of a woman’s brain, anymore than he can derive from mere evidence the motives of the criminal lunatic? A female Moriarty could be as cunning as a fox, yet as elusive as mist.”

“You’re growing poetical in your old age,” I harrumphed. “It’s a habit I don’t advise you to cultivate.”

Holmes threw back his head and laughed in delight. “Oh, Watson!” he breathed. “You are the very quintessence of romance. For you a return visit to Reichenbach must be a grim pilgrimage undertake in dour solemnity, just as every woman must be an innocent and every villain a brute.”

“I have seen enough in our years together to know that there are many civilised villains and women of quite deadly intent,” I assured him. “But perhaps you have forgotten; although  _you_  knew that those falls never harmed you,  _I_  left here with a heart full of grief and loss, and that hardly had I recovered from that blow when my poor wife fell ill.

“The Falls may be Moriarty’s downfall for you, but to me it is the place where I lost the greatest friend I ever had.”  
As I finished I glanced across the compartment. There was only one other traveller, a young man with a restless, troubled air, but I was embarrassed to think that any stranger had witnessed this outburst. Fortunately, he seemed quite absorbed by the view.

Holmes’ face grew sober. “My dear friend, I did not think. My deepest apologies. Ah, but perhaps I can make it up to you,” he suggested. “I can give you a story of true love and daring escapes the like of which you have never heard. What do you say?”

“A love story? From you?”

“Yes. It would be a new experience. Shall I try it?”

*

‘Our story begins in Geneva, where a struggling young Perthshire musician was fortunate enough to find favour with a wealthy, aristocratic patroness; a baroness. He was a gifted musician with a broad range, singing and playing the double bass as well as the violin, the flute and the guitar. And as so often happens, this bright young thing was imposed upon to provide musical instruction to his patroness’s children and ward, which onerous duty he undertook somewhat reluctantly, only to discover that these music lessons held an unexpected attraction for him.

‘The Baroness’s children were seven and nine years old; active little boys with no interest in music. They had a cousin, however, named Justine; a blossoming seventeen year old whose parents had died, leaving her to the care of her aunt, the Baroness. She had an ear for music and even some natural talent, but more than that she was a great beauty.

‘Of course, our hero – we’ll call him Andrew, as I’m sure that you are about to demand a name and it is as good a name as any for a Scot – who was a musician, artist and romantic over all, fell head over heels in love with Justine and just as naturally, she fell in love with him.

‘Well of course he was handsome, and charming; why else would the Baroness take an interest in him? And you accuse me of being blind to the mysteries of womankind.

‘Notes were passed, secret assignations… assigned and a clandestine betrothal contracted, with the connivance of fellow musicians, friends among the staff at the Baronial pied-à-terre and of course of the two boys, who were great friends to their cousin.

‘And then, tragedy struck; the Baroness declared that her niece was to marry a man of wealth and status. Justine owed everything to her aunt and could hardly defy her publicly, and the Baroness proved quite intractable. In desperation, the lovers and their friends conceived a plan as ingenious as it was foolhardy.

‘Andrew and his fellow musicians announced that they were to travel to Meiringen to perform an alpine concert; they announced this at short notice, so that the Baroness was sure to be otherwise engaged. Shortly before his departure, Justine appeared to fall ill and took to her room.

‘When he left Geneva by train, Andrew took with him a double bass case, but the instrument was left behind to be sent on by friends and claimed in Meiringen and the case contained the girl, Justine.

‘Justine was to be transported across Switzerland as a musical instrument, and from Meiringen the lovers would flee into Italy and go into hiding until Justine was old enough to marry without consent – eighteen, by the terms of her parents’ generous will.

‘Unfortunately, the plan was hastily conceived and flawed. Justine’s absence was noticed and his destination was known. The Baroness would never expose herself to public scandal by calling the police, but her agents would be posted at all stations to Meiringen and as soon as he left the train, his case was sure to be searched and Justine found and there was nothing that he could do to prevent it.’

*

Holmes sat back in his seat.

“Well?” I demanded. “What happened? Did the lovers escape?”

“I don’t know,” Holmes admitted. “The story is not yet complete, and I would not like to risk guessing at the ending while our travelling companion is pointing a pistol at me.”

I looked over and saw that indeed the young man had ceased to regard the landscape of the pass and was holding a small revolver in a shaking hand.

“Did she send you?” he demanded. He had a soft, Scots accent.

“Noo-one sent us,” Holmes assured him. “My friend and I are making a journey to Meiringen for personal reasons.”

“Don’t lie to me!” he snapped. “How else could you know our plans so completely?”

I regarded the man for a long moment and said: “I believe I can explain that.” I gave a small cough and looked to Holmes for permission before continuing; I should hate to trample on his favourite part of any adventure without his leave.

He nodded and I went on: “That you are concerned about something is clear from your air. I doubt whether I should have spotted that you were a musician, but having been told I can distinguish the calluses on your hands and the slight fillip of the lower lip where it presses on the flute. I presume that my friend saw the double bass case when you boarded the train at Lucerne.”

“Indeed,” Holmes agreed, “and the hem of petticoat which the estimable Justine carelessly allowed to overhang the edge of the case when it was closed.”

“And if there was any doubt, you would be unlikely to leave the compartment seventeen times…”

“Eighteen.”

“…just to check on the state of a double bass.”

“And the rest?”

“Although I was preoccupied, I am certain that my companion noticed each time you picked up the paper that lies beside you, looking so thoroughly dog-eared and worn, to re-read the story you have folded back. Even I can read the headline – BARONESS HELTZER’S JEWELS STOLEN – and my friend is far more accomplished at reading upside down than I am. I have no doubt that the story of the robbery contained enough inconsistencies to reveal it as a cover, and enough truth to provide your name and that of Miss Justine.”

“Correct again, Watson,” Holmes said with a smile. “You really are growing quite accomplished at this game.”

“Game?” the Scot – Andrew, I now knew – demanded. “You think this is a game?”

Holmes smiled. “This seeking out of information, yes? But the business you are about is no game, and I should not be surprised if it led you – and perhaps Justine – to your deaths.”

“Justine?” The man grew pale.

“You have already given out that she was sick. If she threatens to shame her family, what would be simpler than for her to die of that illness?”

“But what can I…”

There was a soft rap at the door of the compartment. “Monsieur Holmes?” the conductor called.

“Hide that pistol for a start,” Holmes suggested. He stood, quite fearless, and opened the compartment doors. “Yes, my good man,” he said.

“A parcel for you, Monsieur Holmes. With a letter.”

“Thank you very much.” Holmes took a coin from his pocket and tipped the conductor, before closing the door and rejoining us.

“Did he… And did you say ‘Mr Holmes’?”

“I did,” I assured him.

Holmes grinned. “Ah, yes. I am Mr Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and confidant, Dr John Watson. Watson, this is Mr Andrew McAllister, the celebrated multi-instrumentalist.”

“Your powers are not exaggerated, Mr Holmes,” McAllister sighed. “It’s uncanny.”

“Elementary,” Holmes replied, as he often did when faced with an admirer; they expected it and he is, for all his many gifts, something of a showman at heart. “What shall, I hope, be remarkable will be your disappearance from this train, along with your fiancée.”

McAllister was startled. “My disappearance?”

“On my return journey from Reichenbach,” Holmes replied, “I made a number of good friends, including several in Lungern. When the train stopped at Giswil, I sent a wire ahead, asking for certain items to be prepared and sent aboard the train in this parcel. I have here a change of clothes for you and for your Justine. Not quite what she is used to, I am afraid; you will have been seen boarding as a first class passenger and so you must leave as Swiss peasants from the third class coaches. I have also third class tickets to show the conductor.

“My friend’s daughter, Alouette, will escort you from the station and do all of the talking. She will also see to it that you get safely across the mountains to Italy, where Dr Watson and I will meet you and escort you safely home to Scotland and wait with you the three weeks until you can be married under Scottish law.”

McAllister’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Mr Holmes… I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Think nothing of it,” he assured the young man. “I do this as a favour to my good and faithful friend the incurable romantic, to whom I once caused unforgivable distress.”


End file.
